Friday, February 4, 2011

Valentine cards don’t have to take hours to be wonderful. Here is a simple card idea created using stickers, cardstock cut outs, some ribbon, some punched decorative elements and a little bit of bling in the form of some adhesive pearls. This design can be used over and over again by switching out elements, punches, ribbons and papers of your choosing. In my sample, I paired some reddish-brown Cardstock with wonderful papers and elements from the manufacturer Little Yellow Bicycle.

Day 28 - Cork Board Date Night Card

Wanna try a fun card idea? For this Date Night card I used paper die cut elements from Shabby Chic Crafts along with a scrap piece of cork to create a faux cork board. Try this idea with your own layered elements. I used a paper clip and stick pin to add to the stationery look with two colors of twine from the Twinery and a diecut ribbon heart strip from May Arts. This card was featured as a design team project on the Glue Arts Blog. See the link for instructions and a complete supply list.

Day 30 - Uplift Card

I used pieces from a craft I made at last year's CHA show (the butterfly) to create this inspirational card for my daughter. I love pairing brights with black and white. It gives a high contrast look. Since the butterfly had a stamped french verse, I paired it with a wheeled elegant background in Tempting Turquoise ink. I smudged black ink on the white grosgrain ribbon to make it stand out from the white cardstock and add to the vintage feel. A torn bottom edge with a strip of black glued to the inside panel makes the deckled edge stand out. Try this fun handmade embellishment - layer rhinestones over top of sequins to create your own fun bling accent! I used my Glue Glider Pro and some mini extreme adhesive squares for assembly of the pieces on this cheery card design.

Day 31 - preliminary tree art for digi set

This art shows some preliminary ideas and the evolution of the loving

tree 2 color clip art which will be the basis of a new themed digital clip art collection.

Stay tuned for the reveal of the completed collection.

Day 32- Guess Who Card

Day 33 - The assembly of the 1st Birthday Invites

Day 34 - The Loving Tree Collection

(the finished set based on the digi art created earlier this week)

Next week's creativity will include some layouts and other crafty surprises,

and some more digital artwork concepts, too. Please tell your friends to visit.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Day 26 was spent working on my Frame Project for Glue Arts Design team utilizing their Accent-It-All vinyl with one of my digi collections, Lovey Dovey, that contains some bonus svg files. For those of you who don't know what an svg file is, it is a file format used with plotters and digital diecutting machines such as Cricut, Silhouette, etc. You can use software that is meant for your cutter to scale, cut or print svg files for use on assorted projects. SCAL (Sure Cuts A Lot is a very popular one used with the Cricut).

Here are some photos of the frame project. For a list of the supplies I used on this and complete step-by-step instructions, you can go to Glue Art's blog post. The one thing on this project that I really enjoyed was creating the sugared flower. I made it from punched cardstock using a flower punch from Marvy. This technique was inspired by flowers I created with a friend using a technique she showed me with Stampin’ Up’s five petal flower punch. I applied the same steps and adding a few ideas of my own. Try it out...perfect for a Valentine's gift or card!

Here you can see how I used scrap vinyl to add the Crystal Effects to the flower with a small paint brush. This is step one of the sugaring process.

I held the flower in my hands while brushing on the clear laquer, then I lightly sprinkled iridescent glitter on top to make it look sugary and sparkly.

Monday, January 31, 2011

Day 24 and I started working on a brush set of swirls, Swirly QZ’s that can be used on their own as brushes, that can be colorized in solid colors, used as a mask with patterned papers or even combined with other graphics to create interesting page elements or card accents. I also want to include svg files that will work with personal diecutting machines i.e. Cricut or Silhouette and software that allows you to cut out the svg files. Just think of how fun it would be to have these as diecuts for scrapbooking! Stay tuned for updates on the release of this new set. I would love your thoughts and ideas on this.

These pen and ink Gnome Garden sketches are just a starting point in the design process in a set that will be full of color clip art designs. From these preliminary sketches I will work on combining items and creating final digital artwork for the set making sure to include elements that make it full of fun designs to work with on a variety of projects. Thought you might enjoy seeing how set designs evolve.

Check back for future posts to see how these sets develop or you

can visit www.mygrafico.com for releases of other new digital collections.

Sorry for the long delay in posts, but this past week was a bit overwhelming in many areas of my life. I did manage to do something creative each day, however, it is taking me a little bit to get it posted to share with all of you.

My day 23 project has actually been an ongoing (almost daily) project...a top secret design of a 1st birthday invitation for my cousin’s little girl, Brooke. I can only post a snippet of the project not to spoil the whole surprise. The reason I chose today is because this is the day we finalized the papers, colors, etc. The theme is cupcakes!

My Galleries:

At Your Finger“tips”

Quick tips for living life creatively.

Photography Tip: How to Make Them Forget About The Camera

Usually when someone shoots photos, they wait until the end to do the silly outtake shots. My secret is to do them first. This can lighten the mood, loosen up your subjects and make them relax more...all leading to them forgetting about the camera. This also allows you to dial in your settings while they are still playing. This can definitely be a strategy for shooting young kids. Let them play a bit and get familiar with you before you point this big scary lens at them.